The Multimodal Features of Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the

Of all compelling qualities in Mark Haddon’s complex 2004 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, such as the narrative structure, imaginative capacity and

hermeneutic possibilities, the most prominent feature is its multimodality. Alison Gibbons in

“Multimodal Literature and Experimentation” defines multimodality in fiction as those novels which “feature a multitude of semiotic modes in the communication and progression of their narratives” (436). Christopher’s drawings provide the most conspicuous multimodal feature in the novel, however an introduction to multimodality in general is provided first.

Reading a novel involves interacting with a multimodal medium. Multimodality is a way of characterizing communicative situations which rely upon combinations of different forms of information to be effective. Focusing on individual forms of expression within a

communicative situation, as if it were occurring by itself, is insufficient. An understanding of the combined multimodal elements in multimodality, such as diagrams, pictures, texts, graphs and drawings, is needed to describe the basic functioning of combinations of expressive resources and for analyzing them. The Curious Incident and digital storytelling (DST) have a uniquely close connection. Importantly, Haddon’s novel uniquely combines a wide range of different semiotic modes which are integrated with other nonverbal elements into the

otherwise language-based novelistic narrative. The novel’s multiple semiotics present insight into the protagonist Christopher John Francis Boone’s exceptional mind through maps, drawings, letters, mathematical equations, diagrams, lists, graphs, appendices and footnotes.

This plethora of signifying systems presents Christopher’s divergent cognitive capacity and his complex integrity, as much as his various modes of communication in the multi-discursive world in which he lives. In Haddon’s work The Curious Incident, readers are repeatedly reminded of the visual nature of the text for instance by the implementation of bold and different fonts. In addition, the nonconventional use of the space on a page, shifting from text to image to text, results in a combination of the verbal and the visual to unfold the narrative.

The implementation of the multimodal elements such as drawings and letters are some of the semiotic resources which visually contribute to the narrative and to character development in unique and crucial ways. The readers are urged to visualize different concepts in the layout presented by the main character Christopher, which further results in giving tangibility to his mental structure and vision of the world. The novel is organized using prime numbers -2, 3,5,7,11… - to identify the different chapters of the novel, which thus functions as

instruments to construct the character. The unexpected and graphic numbering of the chapters

de-automatizes the reading and the reader’s attention is drawn to the materiality of the text.

The chapter numbers become another factor in discovering Christopher’s subjectivity. The prime numbers are, as the protagonist states: “what is left when you have taken all the patterns away… They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them” (15). Thus, Christopher’s preoccupation with prime numbers symbolizes his viewpoint, they become an allegory of the impossibility of working out the rules of life. When reading Haddon’s multimodal novel, readers are requested to reassess what a novel is in physical terms which can be challenging. The challenge brought by the semiotic variation and the mathematical oddity of The Curious Incident is in fact what makes the novel both enjoyable and experimental, reflecting Christopher’s individuality and alternative means of communication. In this multimodal novel, the wide range of different modes and media engage in the construction of the protagonist’s personality and of the story world, in accordance with Wolfgang Harret’s idea of multimodality: “it is the complex interplay between different semiotic modes, generic forms, and ways of conceiving and making sense of the world that eventually constitutes novelistic narration” (“The Multimodal Novel”, 148). The range of nonverbal forms of representation presented by the autodiegetic narrator does not only serve to communicate his actions or replace further detailed

descriptions, but also to depict Christopher’s thoughts, cognitive strategies and individuality.

The multimodal elements of The Curious Incident are exactly what make the novel extraordinary and a work of art worth studying in Norwegian classrooms.

Haddon’s The Curious Incident comprises several signifying systems, communicative modes and narrative surprises. “These patterns reveal his outstanding memory and fascination with repetition, order and accuracy, while they remind readers of his dependence on predictable patterns in everything he does” Mariana Mussetta writes in “Semiotic Resources in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” (106). The detailed and accurate though also simple and sketchy drawings provide one of the most prominent multimodal features in Haddon’s novel. Haddon develops Christopher as a complex character by numerous textual intricacies. Some of the drawings included in The Curious Incident are representations of objects or patterns Christopher perceives in his own world and everyday life, like the portrayal of the pattern on the walls and seats of the train (227). Interestingly, he draws particular patters which have captured the attention of his specific mind and not the whole object. Further, Christopher also includes drawings which are directly drawn from memory, for instance the constellation of a dinosaur by means of combining the dots (stars) of the

Orion Constellation in a different manner (156-157). The drawings are nicely introduced in the text, with phrases such as “it was/looked like this” which enables readers to smoothly advance the reading of the text. Wolfgang Hallet in “The Multimodal Novel” claims that the narrator, apart from narrating a story “searches, retrieves and ‘collects’ documents and sources and eventually presents them to the reader, the process of narrating includes

‘showing’ and ‘presentation’” (150). The depiction and presentation of drawings in The Curious Incident, highlights Christopher’s need to visualize his thinking, but also his need to reproduce his thought processes in the novel. By combining detailed and simple drawings, Haddon presents both Christopher’s seriousness and naivety. The main character is certainly skilled in mathematics and can solve complex equations, however he is also interested in drawing aliens and cars. Though he might resemble an adult in some of his abilities, the readers are reminded that he is just a boy through the way Christopher conceives and portrays the world in the novel. The protagonist’s occasional complex explanations are not always illustrated by drawings, in fact he develops ideas in different modes so that readers can choose the semiotic resource they prefer to understand his explanation. According to Wolfgang Harret in “The Rise of the Multimodal Novel” all the multimodality: “changes the ways in which the novel communicates the fictional world to the reader – for example, by adding a few illustrative elements – and offers the reader access to dimensions of the fictional world that cannot be rendered in verbal form” (124-125). The primary numbers and drawings function as character developing strategies, in ways that verbal resources would presumably not be able to, which further contributes to readers’ understanding of the narrator as a

complex protagonist. The combination of the different discourses also allows the narrative to develop multimodally, and thus meaning is illustrated in non-traditional ways. The

multimodality of The Curious Incident can uniquely aspire pupils when they have to create effective, multimodal texts with DST.

The striking similarities between Christopher John Francis Boone in The Curious Incident and the pupils in upper secondary school, such as their uniqueness, imagination, curiosity and multimodal ways of thinking and working, provide teachers with an extraordinary opportunity of teaching the novel, and of doing so via DST. The classroom should be an inclusive and inspiring learning environment where diversity must be acknowledged as a resource.

Utdanningsforbundet state in “3.1 An Inclusive Learning Environment” that “the pupils shall learn to respect uniqueness and understand that everyone has a place in the school

community. When children and young people are treated with respect and acknowledgment in

the teaching and training, their sense of belonging will be strengthened”. Pupils can identify with Christopher’s cleverness, will-power, difficulty of imagining others’ thoughts and feelings and his imagination, thus these dimensions of recognition have a self-empowering effect. Furthermore, Christopher contributes to the layout of how to make a digital story by including the different multimodal elements. The protagonist of the novel thus includes his drawings to support his thoughts and views, much in the same way pupils can recreate and continue prepared literature, such as Haddon’s novel, or co-write and imagine their own narratives in DST. Rolf Baltzersen suggests in Digitale Fortellinger i Skolen that pupils are expected to make a storyboard in order to plan and visualize their digital story, which involves making a setup for how one wishes to combine the use of for example

drawings/pictures, text and sound. The use of multimodal elements in Haddon’s novel helps make the narrative unfold and shape the protagonist in his peculiar frame of mind. Pupils have to determine which drawings they would include in their digital story and, importantly, why these in particular. How do the visual elements help convey the message of their story?

Haddon specifically elected which drawings, maps, lists etc. to include in his novel and when to unfold them, which in result gives readers an insight into extraordinary people and minds.

Pupils, much like Christopher, become authors of their own stories. Such individual,

imaginative and self-empowering use of literature and DST meets perfectly specific aims in the new “Competence Aims and Assessment English (ENG01-04)” by

Utdanningsdirektoratet: “write different types of formal and informal texts, including multimedia texts with structure and coherence that describe, discuss, reason and reflect adapted to the purpose, receiver and situation”. Thus, teaching the novel and DST is

encouraged by both the CC2020 and the ESC2020 which further demonstrates its value in the teaching situation. Importantly, the multimodal features of Haddon’s novel not only interact with the didactic possibilities of DST, Christopher Boone also functions as a representative of the diversity of individual pupils in a classroom. He depicts his difficulties and social relation issues in moods and modes pupils can associate with their own challenges and storytelling.

Boone’s enigmatic, erratic and peculiar singularity also offers high levels of indication for many of the reading pupils. The many similarities between Christopher Boone and pupils will be further discussed in this thesis, however they will be included in order to support my main analysis. Nevertheless, teaching the close connection between the novel and DST and its protagonist and the pupils can help teachers convey and excite pupils for reading literature and creating in different modes their own self-empowering stories.